


The Prisoner

by ereshai



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Adult Stiles Stilinski, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Child Stiles Stilinski, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Prison, Prisoner Derek Hale, Slightly inspired by The Man In the Iron Mask, This is kind of a montage in text form, Time Skips, Warning: Kate Argent, omg and it has elements of Snow White, which i just realized
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 00:54:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21838678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ereshai/pseuds/ereshai
Summary: Stiles was a curious kid - always going places he wasn't supposed to go and talking to people he shouldn't be talking to.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 263
Collections: The Sterek Secret Santa - Edition 2019





	The Prisoner

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Beerwolves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beerwolves/gifts).



> So this is a weird fic where the United States is a series of small kingdoms instead of states. I've played fast and loose with how royalty probably works. It's practically a fairy tale, because werewolves and magic exist. A lot of stuff is implied instead of being spelled out, including the fact that werewolves and magic exist :p

**Beacon Hills, capital city of the Kingdom of Beacon, 2004**

Stiles stuck close to his dad, barely looking up from his feet as they toured the Beacon Hills Sheriff's Hall. He wasn’t really sure what his dad’s new job was. Maybe he was in charge of all the other deputies in the kingdom of Beacon now? There had been a letter from the King, but Stiles hadn’t really been paying attention to anything since his mom-

“What’s down here? Storage?” his dad asked.

“It’s mostly unused cells,” their guide, one of his dad’s new deputies, said. “For long-term prisoners. But yes, there’s also some storage down here. Outdated equipment, old files, anything we don’t need on a regular basis.”

His dad hmm’ed thoughtfully. Not too long ago, Stiles would have laughed at that and maybe tried to warn this deputy what that thoughtful hmm meant, but now he just looked up and finally paid attention to the hallway they were in. They were standing next to a door with a sliding panel set in the middle and a slit of a window so narrow that Stiles’s dad would have had to lift him up and hold him right next to it if he wanted to look through it. He might be a kid, but he recognized a solitary confinement cell door when he saw one. He sidled closer to his dad and leaned against his leg.

“Is there anything else I need to see today?” his dad said. He put his hand on Stiles’s shoulder and squeezed.

The deputy looked between them and visibly changed his answer. “No, I’d say we’re all done for now.”

His dad nodded, and they headed for the stairs. Stiles thought he saw a gleam of light in the cell door window, but there was nothing when he looked again.

~

**Beacon Hills, capital city of the Kingdom of Beacon, 2006**

His dad had a dungeon.

Not a dark and damp stone one lit with torches - which would have been way cooler - but there were prison cells in the basement of the Sheriff’s Hall and that counted as a dungeon and _there was someone in one of them_. Probably a murderer.

His dad had the best job.

Stiles approached the door of the occupied cell and slowly slid the panel open. He darted back, out of arm’s reach; he wasn’t stupid. He tried to look inside, but it was too dark to see anything without getting closer. He squinted; was that movement? He took a step forward.

“Stiles,” his dad said from the top of the stairs. “I told you not to go down there.”

That was his dad’s ‘I mean business’ voice, so Stiles ran back upstairs.

Next time he was going to talk to the murderer in the dungeon.

~

  
  


**Beacon Hills, capital city of the Kingdom of Beacon, 2007**

Stiles waited until the nearby deputies were distracted, then slipped downstairs. If his dad was really serious about keeping him away from the basement cells, the door would be locked, right?

He didn’t bother to turn on the lights - there was just enough sunlight coming through the tiny window set high on the wall at the end of the hallway for him to see by. He could probably find his way to the Prisoner’s cell blindfolded anyway.

He slid open the panel and peeked through the opening. The room was dim; the Prisoner was to be kept in darkness, no matter how much his dad didn’t like it. “Hi,” he whispered. “Got you something.” He placed an apple on the ledge that jutted out from the opening.

There was a deep sigh from one corner of the room. “Why?”

“Prison food sucks. Dad says so.”

“Why do you keep coming back? Talking to me?”

Stiles shrugged. He didn’t know why himself. “Because.”

There was a pause.“...thank you.” 

Stiles moved away and after a moment the apple disappeared from the ledge. The Prisoner didn’t like for Stiles to get too close or try to see him.

When Stiles had first started bringing outside food for the Prisoner, he had worried about things like apple cores and orange peels. Apparently the orange peels could be flushed if they were broken up into tiny pieces, but the Prisoner ate the apple core, seeds and all. Ew. Stiles didn’t like to think about it, so he started doing what he did best: chatter.

“So my buddy Scott has a crush on the Little Princess and Lydia is all ‘Don’t be stupid, you don’t have a chance’ and it’s not like Scott actually thinks he does, but he can still like her, right? It’s like having a crush on a movie star. I mean, I have a better shot with Lydia than Scott does with a freakin’ princess, and Lydia is like, unattainable. Plus she’s going steady with Jackson, just because his dad is Lord Mayor. She has a genius brain, but I guess even smart people do stupid things.

“Anyway, Scott’s got her picture in his wallet and he looks at it and sighs a lot, which is kinda lame. I don’t do that with Lydia, and I’m an expert at having a crush. I-”

“Someone’s coming,” the Prisoner said suddenly. “Close the panel and hide.”

“What?”

“Stiles, hurry,” the Prisoner hissed, and Stiles did as he was told.

Just as he finished sliding the panel shut, the overhead lights came on. Stiles whirled and ran for the storage closet, which was always unlocked despite his dad’s efforts. He dashed inside and shut the door as quietly as he could. There was less than half an inch of space at the bottom of the door; Stiles lay down and pressed his face as close to the crack as he could. He wouldn’t be able to see anything, but he could probably hear enough to learn something interesting.

A clatter of footsteps marched down the hallway, echoing off the bare cement walls. Stiles had learned early on to be quiet while visiting the Prisoner, who had really sensitive hearing - these people either didn’t know or didn’t care.

“Open the door and leave us.” A woman’s voice, very commanding. Nobility for sure.

“My lady-” A man, probably a personal guard. The nobility always had personal guards.

“He wouldn’t dare try to harm me. He knows what will happen if he does. Open the door and wait by the stairs.”

“Yes, my lady.” There was a metallic groan - the cell door opening? - and then a bunch of footsteps clomping away. 

“Der-ek,” the woman sing-songed. “Come out, come out wherever you are.”

Stiles didn’t like her.

“Then I’ll have to come to you.” 

A muted step and then all he could hear was the muffled sound of her voice, no matter how he adjusted his position. He waited an eternity, with only her unintelligible words and the occasional sound of her mocking laughter audible from the Prisoner’s cell.

She finally emerged. “I’m finished,” she called. The guards came back and as the door was groaning shut, she said mockingly, “Until next year, sweetie.”

Stiles really didn’t like her.

Their footsteps marched away and then up the stairs. Then the lights went out and there was a faint sound of a door closing. Stiles waited.

After another eternity, Stiles got up and opened the door. He stepped out into the darkened hallway - the sun had set at some point - and quietly closed it again. He made his way to the Prisoner’s cell - hey, he really could find his way blind - and slid the panel open.

“Hello?” he whispered.

No answer.

“Derek?”

“Forget you heard that name.” Derek’s voice was low and sad.

“I’m sorry she was mean to you.”

“Just go away.”

“Oh. Okay. Um, I’ll talk to you later?”

No answer.

Reluctantly, Stiles slid the panel closed and left him alone, creeping down the hallway toward the stairs, not only because it was dark.

At the top of the stairs, he opened the door a crack and peeked out. It didn’t look like anyone was around, so he opened it a little more and squeezed out. Then he closed it again and heaved a sigh of relief.

A heavy hand came down on his shoulder. Stiles yelped.

“How long were you down there?” his dad whispered, furious.

“Um-”

“Were you down there when Princess Katherine arrived?”

Stiles’s eyes went wide. “Princess Katherine?”

“Do you know what she would have done if she’d found you down there? We would both be spending the rest of our lives in one of those cells.”

“Dad-”

“Don’t, Stiles. You can’t talk your way out of this one. We’re going home. I’ll figure out your punishment for this once I’ve calmed down.”

His dad let go of his shoulder. “We’re leaving.” He strode away and Stiles hurried after him. He’d never seen his dad so angry, not at him.

The drive home was silent. Stiles felt bad, but he couldn’t think of anything he might have done differently. Not get caught? 

When they got home, his dad sent him to his room. Neither of them mentioned supper.

“Dad?” Stiles asked hesitantly from the staircase. “Who is he?”

“Stiles-” His dad sighed and rubbed his forehead. “His name is Adrian Harris. He plotted against the royal family and now he’ll be in prison for the rest of his life. Stay away from him.”

Why would Princess Katherine call the Prisoner Derek if his name was Adrian Harris? Something wasn’t right. Something that might be dangerous for his dad to know. “Okay.”

Stiles trudged up to his room. He had some research to do.

~

**Beacon Hills, capital city of the Kingdom of Beacon, 2011**

Stiles burst into the kitchen of the Sheriff’s Hall, carrying a small bag of apples. “I’m here! I brought them! It’s not too late, is it?”

Stiles had been helping out in the kitchen since he was eleven, although at first it had been part of his punishment for going places he wasn’t supposed to go. Prison food really did suck. Stiles wasn’t sure if the bad food was part of the criminals paying their debt to society, but he did know that prisoners were supposed to be fed nutritious meals. His dad had agreed and at Stiles’s suggestion, they had added fresh fruit to the prisoner’s meals to go with their otherwise nutritionally adequate slop. For years, Stiles had been allowed to place said fresh fruit on the lunch trays before they were served (because he definitely was not allowed to cook anything or handle sharp objects) and today he had been sent to buy more apples because the ones in the kitchen had gone bad.

“I’d swear you were still eleven years old,” Brenda, the kitchen manager, said fondly. “You aren’t too late. Go on, we’re about to load everything on the carts.”

Stiles rinsed the apples and started putting them on the trays, moving as fast as he could without dropping anything or knocking anything over.

“Sooo, Brenda,” Stiles said as soon as the kitchen workers started loading the trays on carts. “Do you think I could…” He gestured vaguely with hands and smiled, his eyes wide and innocent.

“No,” Brenda scolded with a laugh. “You can’t help deliver the meals. I don’t know why you keep asking.”

“Because one day you might say yes,” Stiles said with a charming smile. 

Brenda shooed him away and Stiles went.

As soon as he was out of sight, he hurried down the hallway toward a place he was definitely not supposed to be. He ducked into an unused office and hurried over to the vent, mentally thanking the fates that the Sheriff’s Hall was new enough to have central heating and old enough to have a ventilation system that required repair people to actually enter the vents to fix shit when it broke.

He pulled the grate away and crawled inside. He carefully replaced the grate behind him and began to make his way along the route he’d mapped out from building schematics. Hopefully they had been accurate. He moved as quickly as he could, cursing every thump and scrape he caused. If his luck held, the noise would be dismissed as the random sounds of an old HVAC system.

There were a few heart-stopping moments when he had to climb down to the basement level vents - the maintenance ladder needed maintenance - but soon he was letting himself down into the supply closet where he had hidden from Princess Katherine all those years ago. The door was still being kept unlocked - another uncontrollable variable working out in his favor - and he crept out into the hallway.

The sliding panel on Derek’s cell door barely made a scraping sound as he pulled it aside. “Derek?” he whispered. “It’s me, Stiles.”

“Stiles?” Suddenly a face loomed in front of him in the darkness. Derek was pale, and his dark, unkempt hair and beard were shot through with silver, but he still looked like the pictures Stiles had found on the internet. “What are you doing here?”

“I snuck in. Listen, there’s no time. I need you to promise to eat your apple today, okay?”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“It’s going to taste funny. Maybe smell funny. Just eat it, all of it, okay?”

Derek’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

Stiles pulled a chain out from under his shirt. The attached pendant was etched with a swirling symbol. “The sun, the moon, the truth. Your mother sent me, Prince Derek. Please, just trust me.”

Derek stared at him, then nodded. Stiles placed his hand in the opening, palm up, and waited to see if Derek would take it. After a moment, Derek did.

When Stiles started to pull away, Derek tightened his grip. “Stiles,” he whispered. “Thank you.”

Stiles nodded. “Good luck.” Then he closed the panel and hurried away. Getting back out would be just as tricky as getting in had been.

He was almost back to the unused office when his phone buzzed with an incoming text. Shit, he was behind schedule. He sped up, muttering ‘Don’t notice me, don’t notice me’ under his breath as his progress made more noise than could be explained by it being old. He almost crashed through the vent grate, still muttering, and quickly got out and replaced it. He stopped at the door, closed his eyes and placed one hand on the knob and the other on the wall. “Don’t notice me,” he said one more time, and opened the door.

There was a deputy in the hall when he stepped out of the office, but she only looked at Stiles with uninterested eyes and continued on her way.

“Holy shit, it worked,” he whispered, then he started running. No one tried to stop him. When he reached his dad’s office, he stopped, let out a slow, deliberate breath, and said, “All done.”

He was panting with exertion when he burst into his dad’s office.

“Stiles, what’s wrong?” his dad asked, halfway out of his seat.

“Dad,” he gasped. “Can I… stay… with Scott… tonight?”

His dad sat back down. “And you rushed in here to ask because…?”

“Scott’s waiting,” Stiles answered, still catching his breath.

“And you couldn’t have called? Texted?” His dad raised a ‘my son is an idiot’ brow at him.

“I… could have done that, yes. But then I wouldn’t have seen you at all today, dad-dad-daddy-o.” Stiles shuffled his feet. “Sooo, can I?”

“How does Melissa feel about this?”

“She’s working the night shift all weekend. She told us not to set anything on fire and not to eat all of the Oreos.”

His dad gave him a piercing look, then nodded. “Fine, you can stay at Scott’s. But if I find out you didn’t clear this with Melissa…”

“Yeah, yeah, grounded for life, no driving until I’m thirty-five, bread and water diet, all that good stuff.”

The phone rang and his dad waved him out. “Don’t cause any mayhem,” he said and answered the phone.

Stiles hurried outside, where Scott was waiting for him in Stiles’s jeep. “Did you do it?” Scott asked while Stiles was buckling his seatbelt.

“All done. Now we live normal teenage boy lives for a while.”

“Awesome. Call of Duty tonight?”

“Scotty, you are going down,” Stiles said as he started the jeep.

The next morning, his dad told him the Prisoner had died in his sleep. The day after that, the news stations reported that the Prisoner’s body had disappeared from the morgue. His name was not given. Princess Katherine was seen storming in and out of the Sheriff’s Hall every day for a week. Stiles stayed far away.

~

**Beacon Preserve, neutral territory between the kingdoms of Beacon and Triskele, 2016**

Princess Allison Argent, formerly known as the Little Princess, now heir-apparent to the throne of Beacon, waited at the edge of Wolf’s Glade with her honor guard, which counted her secret fiance Scott McCall among its number. On the other side, Princess Laura Hale, heir-apparent to the throne of Triskele, waited with several of her brothers and sisters, including Prince Derek, formerly a prisoner of Princess Allison’s aunt, Princess Katherine. His escape had led to a brutal war, and now, five years later, both sides agreed that the cost of the war was too high. Stiles privately thought Princess Katherine’s death in battle, followed by King Gerard’s fatal heart attack upon hearing the news, had helped the end of the war along.

Stiles, as someone with ties to both sides, stood in the middle of the Glade with Emissary Deaton. Nobody was leaving until they hammered out a treaty, not if he had anything to say about it. He wanted to date his new boyfriend in peace. He looked over at Derek and winked.


End file.
